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The following solution is
supposed to clarify the incident having
occurred in the Bundesliga match between Bayer Leverkusen and Borussia M'gladbach, refereed by Felix Brych, that was put
up for debate in this blog post.

The official assessment issued by DFB's referee committee member Lutz Michael Fröhlich upon The Third Team's request:

No deliberate handball and therefore no penalty, because the player who handled the ball (Arango, white 18), raised his arm above his head as a part of a natural movement while jumping and because the player was unable to see the ball coming from his back. Therefore the correct decision would have been letting the play go on.

87 % of the voters in the poll have disagreed with this interpretation - including me. A further post on this current issue in refereeing will follow in due course.

Having officiated in UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League
semi-final matches, Jonas Eriksson is well used to the big occasion,
making him the ideal choice to take charge of the UEFA Super Cup between
FC Bayern München and Chelsea FC on Friday evening. The Swedish spoke to UEFA.com about his pride at being
appointed for the UEFA Super Cup, what inspired his decision to become a
match official and what motivates him.

Jonas Eriksson looking forward to Prague final

Speaking to UEFA.com, the Swedish referee revealed his pride at being
selected for such a prestigious match, his reasons for taking up
refereeing in the first place and the driving factor behind his success,
on and off the field.

UEFA.com: Jonas Eriksson, how much are you looking forward to refereeing the UEFA Super Cup?

Jonas Eriksson:
A lot, of course. I've been refereeing since I was 14 or 15 years old
and of course at that age you dream of officiating at one of the biggest
finals – and this is one of them.

UEFA.com:You've already refereed some important matches in your career, where does the UEFA Super Cup rank among your highlights?

Eriksson:
A final is a final – a winner will be decided. To be appointed for a
one-off, knock-out match is always something significant. I try not to
rate the matches in terms of importance, I'm just delighted to have been
appointed for this match and that UEFA have put their trust in me.

UEFA.com:What inspired you to become a referee?

Eriksson:
I felt a lot of referees didn't have the kind of communication skills I
expected as a player at a young age – referees who could explain their
decisions. Often they didn't have the fitness to be in the right spot.
The quality of the refereeing was not good at the level I played at and I
felt I could do better. They told me to do a course and do it myself –
so I did.

UEFA.com:Who were your role models as a young referee?

Eriksson:
I spent a lot of time with Anders Frisk, Sweden's top referee until
2005. I followed him to a number of matches as a fourth official, but I
also looked at other referees. I don't think you could copy one referee.
It's too much about personality, but I learned bits and pieces from
Anders and I looked at other European referees, Pierluigi Collina being
one, Markus Merk being another, Hugh Dallas a third. All of them had
different skills which I looked at and tried to adopt and develop.

UEFA.com:How important are man-management skills when you're out on the field refereeing 22 players?

Eriksson:
Of course it has a lot to do with man-management, the way you approach
the players, the way you communicate with them and also prevent things
from happening. You have to sell them the decision and get them to
accept it. Sometimes you don't make the best decisions but you have to
be very good at selling the decisions, otherwise you're going to have a
very tough time out there.

UEFA.com: It must also take a lot of character and mental strength…

Eriksson:
I think self-confidence and the ability to sell your decisions – that
means looking self-assured and being able to convince the players that I
made the right decision – is very important. If you don't have that
personality and trust in yourself, I don't think you can do the job.

UEFA.com:
As well as becoming a successful referee, you also became a successful
businessman. What is it that gives you the drive to get to the very top?

Eriksson:
I love football and I love to referee. Every week when I step out onto
the grass I'm doing what I love most. I've had a fantastic life as a
businessman as well, but since 2011 I've dedicated myself to being a
professional referee and I'm having the time of my life.

UEFA.com: How are you and your assistants going to prepare for tomorrow's game?

Eriksson:
We received the appointments a few days ago. I've been studying the two
teams technically. These are two well-known teams, we’ve all seen them
before. Of course there are a few new things – they have new managers
for example – but we've watched previous matches. We had a preparatory
talk today and we'll have another tomorrow. We've done matches together
in our domestic competition, too, and we've been doing some training
together too. We're going to warm up, take a walk around the pitch and
look at various positions to enhance our cooperation for Friday's match.

August 28, 2013

During yesterday's Champions League play-off tie between PAOK Saloniki and FC Schalke 04, Dutch referee Björn Kuipers was caught by the TV camera while calming down some players making a gesture with his left hand that was adorned with a wedding ring. May a referee wear jewellery on the pitch?

The answer is a clear "No!". The Laws of the Game define in the guidelines for Law 4:

"All items of jewellery (necklaces, rings, bracelets, earrings, leather bands, rubber bands, etc.) are strictly forbidden and must be removed. Referees are also prohibited from wearing jewellery (except for a watch or similar device for timing the match)."

Referee Kuipers should have removed his ring prior to the match - as he did not, he in a way infringed his duties as a match official. The idea behind the prohibition of jewellery is the try to ban this potential danger for players and referees colliding with each other.

Contrary to former times, players and referees moreover must not deploy tape to cover their jewellery during the match. Law 4 also includes the annotation "using tape to cover jewellery is not acceptable."

You can find the match incident captured by the screenshot in this video (if not automatically redirected, fast-forward to 61:29 please).

August 27, 2013

This post is a part of the section in this blog called "Match Situations" that concentrates on specific match
situations related to parts of the Laws of the
Game, version 2013/14. Your participation is crucial to make this blog's
element give some value for referees and football enthusiasts in
general.

You can have your say by giving your assessment on these situations in
form of a comment underneath the respective posts. These comments should
include a precise assessment and an additional explanation that
strengthens your view if needed. Directly quoting from the current version of the Laws of the Game can be useful in some cases.

August 26, 2013

English Mark Clattenburg has been appointed to oversee the sonorous tie between AC Milan and PSV Eindhoven at Stadio Giuseppe Meazza. His officiating team is one of the following five crews who will take control over Wednesday's play-off second legs.

Eriksson, who is 39, has been an international referee since 2002 and
has officiated in a total of 75 UEFA fixtures in his career.

Last
season, Eriksson officiated at six UEFA Champions League matches,
including the quarter-final first leg between Málaga CF and Borussia
Dortmund, as well as three UEFA Europa League matches, including the
semi-final second leg between Chelsea FC and FC Basel 1893. Prior to that, he took control over two matches at UEFA European Championship 2012, among others, the long-standing duel between the Netherlands and Germany.

In July and August 2013, he furthermore attended FIFA Under-20 World Cup with the semi-final between Uruguay and Iraq as the pinnacle. He is additionally pre-selected for 2014 FIFA World Cup.

At the
UEFA Super Cup match in Prague, Eriksson will be assisted by countrymen
Mathias Klasenius and Daniel Wärnmark, with Stefan Wittberg acting as
fourth official. Two additional assistant referees, Stefan Johannesson
and Markus Strömbergsson also from Sweden, complete the lineup of the
refereeing team. It is the first Swedish refereeing team officiating at a final since 2008, when Peter Fröjdfeldt took charge of Zenit St. Petersburg against Rangers FC in UEFA Cup final.

August 25, 2013

These are the five referee appointments for Tuesday's second legs of UEFA Champions League play-off round. This package of designations among others comprises Carlos Velasco Carballo who will attend Emirates Stadium.

August 24, 2013

Right after the play-off ties of UEFA Champions League, last season's winners of UEFA Champions League - Bayern München
- and UEFA Europa League - Chelsea FC - will meet in Prague to fight
for the first title of the season in the UEFA Super Cup final. The match delegates have been already designated by UEFA.

Nikolay Levnikov is a member of the UEFA Referee Committee since spring 2013 and observed Cüneyt Çakır in his Champions League play-off in Eindhoven last week. Therefore he will surely not handle the final match. Based on the presumption that the Super Cup final referee will not be appointed for a Champions League play-off, there is only one official left who probably will be assigned to handle the final: Jonas Eriksson and his officiating team of Sweden.

August 22, 2013

Summarizing the ten first legs of this season's UEFA Champions League play-off round, one can surely point out Milorad Mažić's sending-off occasion in the tie between Olympique Lyon and Real Sociedad as the most controversial match incident that definitely requires some roundup and spotlight. This automatically leads to some general thoughts about the topic of which infringements are, in compliance with the Laws of the Game, occurring outside or inside the penalty area respectively.

These are the five remaining officiating teams who have been assigned for Wednesday's Champions League Play-Off first legs. Among others, 2013 final referee Nicola Rizzoli has been designated for a match.

August 18, 2013

UEFA's Referee Committee have appointed the following five officiating teams to initiate this season's hot phase of UEFA Champions League. Czech Republican Pavel Kralovec has been assigned to blow the earliest starting whistle in Kazakhstan on Tuesday at 17:00 CET.

Dutch FIFA official Richard Liesveld had a guardian angel: During the trip to the Eredivisie match between Roda Kerkrade and Vitesse Arnhem, he had just escaped his car in time before it began to blaze. It burnt out completely.

Liesveld, who accompanied Björn Kuipers to the European Championship 2012 as Additional Assistant Referee, heared a strange noise while driving so he stopped at the first gas station, Dutch FA’s press officer said.
He noticed nothing at first glance and wanted to continue, but then
some people who wear near to the car warned him that his car was burning from
underneath. Liesveld could get out safely, but was not able to take
his referee equipment with him.

A witness said on Twitter that they couldn’t get closer (see picture above) because glass was going everywhere.

Ed Janssen replaced Liesveld in the match, so that the match did not have to be cancelled. The Dutch Police is investigating the
case. The Dutch FA has stated that it had been a technical issue.

The following solution is
supposed to clarify the incident having
occurred in the Bundesliga match between Schalke 04 and Hamburger SV, refereed by Manuel Gräfe, that was put
up for debate in this blog post.

The correct assessment of this situation is:

Penalty for deliberate handball
(negligent hand position/movement, significant enlargement of the body volume preventing a pass from reaching the penalty area. Other criteria do not contradict the referee's decision). A caution was not necessary in this situation.
It does not necessarily have to be a deliberate handball in its literal meaning. The term "deliberate handball" must be understood as a synonym for "chargeable handball" in this specific case. Referee Gräfe took the correct decision.

August 16, 2013

The referee observers for next weeks' UEFA Champions League Play-Off matches have already been appointed and indicate first tendencies with regard to who could potentially handle a certain match.

Nikolay Levnikov is the only UEFA Referee Committee member attending the sonorous match between PSV Eindhoven and AC Milan, while Konrad Plautz in Lyon and Manuel Mejuto González in Glasgow could be a sign for Elite Development Referees or inexperienced Elite officials in these duels.

The referee appointments will be made public by the European football federation on Sunday (and Monday) at 11:00 CET.

August 15, 2013

This post is a part of the section in this blog called "Match Situations" that concentrates on specific match
situations related to parts of the Laws of the
Game, version 2013/14. Your participation is crucial to make this blog's
element give some value for referees and football enthusiasts in
general.

You can have your say by giving your assessment on these situations in
form of a comment underneath the respective posts. These comments should
include a precise assessment and an additional explanation that
strengthens your view if needed. Directly quoting from the current version of the Laws of the Game can be useful in some cases.

Certainly, when the altered offside amendments were visible and accessible to all referees in the new edition of the Laws of the Game, one could have thought that this had only been a small adaption without that much impact on future match situations. This conjecture was wrong.

In the last weeks there were however already plenty of examples that all could have functioned as paramount examples to illustrate what was written down in the interpretations of Law 11. One of them should be highlighted and clarified now. It happened yesterday when Italy met Argentina in form of a FIFA friendly match. Please go to 2:34 in the following video!

It is visible that after the rebound from the Argentine goalkeeper a shot on goal is executed by an Italian player that would have reached the goal in a dangerous manner. After a deflection by Mascherano, that should be discussed later on and that is crucial for the correct assessment of this situation, Italian forward #7 received the ball and scored having been in a clear offside position at the point of time when the original shot on goal was executed. Now the question is to what extent Mascherano's deflection is relevant and how it has to be classified.

The Laws of the Game define that “gaining an
advantage by being in that position means playing a ball

I) that rebounds or is deflected to him off the goalpost, crossbar or an opponent having been in an
offside position (not applicable for this situation)

II) that rebounds, is deflected or is played to him from a deliberate save by an opponent
having been in an offside position.

A player in an offside position receiving the ball
from an opponent, who deliberately plays the ball (except from a deliberate
save), is not considered to have gained an advantage."

What is a "deliberately playing the ball" and what does mean "deliberate save"?

According to FIFA and UEFA instructions:

Deliberately playing the ball requires a clearly deliberate act of a player making a clear movement towards the ball while the quality of this action is to be ignored by the referee.

A deliberate save can be compared to a goalkeeper's save. It is applicable for every player on the pitch though and means that a potential goal is prevented from being scored by this save.

Mascherano surely moved towards the ball to save it. This is however not enough to classify it as deliberately playing the ball. What Mascherano was aware of is that his goalkeeper had tried to make a save before the ball rebounded from the crossbar, meaning that the whole goal was empty and the ball, having moved towards it, would have very likely been a goal scored by Italy. That's why he had to face this ball with a deliberate save saving a goal from being scored. Italy's #7 gained a clear advantage by this deliberate save and was therefore correctly flagged by Wolfgang Stark's assistant referee Mike Pickel.